2/12/14 8:30 AM
No I haven't perished in the night. That's not why you haven't heard from me (geez my last post was way back on 11/24/13). The good news is that I am about 75% better than when the disease (PRP) was at its worst. So much better that I am focused on other things and have kind of lost interest in PRP. However, there's still that 25% to go to a complete cure. Believe me I don't want to tempt the Gods by sounding too confident or being too neglectful. And reading the PRP mailing list of fellow "adventurers" makes me want to share my tentative conclusions with you and them. So here goes.
None of the prescription drugs worked for me. The Derm Docs don't know anything about this disease. Like other Docs they are given way too much credit for their knowledge. Perhaps we have a need to do this (give too much credit to the Docs) and it actually works if it gives us hope since one's mental attitude is very important, perhaps the most important thing in heeling.
The danger is when we are confronted with the all too prevalent Doc combination of ignorance and arrogance. I ran into that big time with Johns Hopkins and I think we really, really need to watch out for this. You can learn more about this here and with my letter to the Chairman of the Johns Hopkins Dermatology department here. The risk from the side effects of this "Infectious Doc Disease" can actually be life threatening given their eagerness to prescribe dangerous drugs together with their lack of knowledge or interest in the alternative to Big Pharma!
What I believe has worked for me is an all natural cure suggested by my Nova Scotia Naturopath Doc: The first element of which has been "Juice Fasting". That means lots of fruits and vegetables turned into juice with a mechanical juicer. You can see more here (with pictures) how this works. What this does is clean out the gut and load you up with vitamins. With no solid food you have to drink a lot of this stuff to avoid being hungry so you ingest huge amounts of vitamins. The downside is that it takes time to shop for all the veges and fruits and process them since you go through far more than if you were not consuming just the concentrated juice. I did this (no solid food) for 35 days. Most of my great improvement came during this time.
The result of this "juice fast" was the "dramatic improvement" noted by my first Derm Doc as described here. When I started this program I was in the process of scaling down in my use of Prednisone. Reading the PRP mailing list has confirmed to me that Prednisone did not help with the improvement I experienced. I was reducing and ultimately ending Prednisone while I was getting better. In fact I found no one who has reported that it helped them with PRP.
However, I do want to "credit" Prednisone with improving my Blog. I came to realize that the quality of my writing -- to the extent the nice compliments were true -- was as much the Prednisone "high" it produced as me talking. Ha!. After I got off Prednisone I lost the euphoria and found the winter days a bit dark. And I found the "new way to sleep" I thought I discovered was perhaps just a Prednisone side effect. Oh well. I am sleeping much more now. But my spirits have recovered and I'm now totally drug free!
Now, I am only occasionally juicing, because of the time involved. I should do more. But my time is filled up with so many other things I want to do and am doing which is good as it is good for my spirits which in turn is so important to curing. I do believe one can over focus on one's health problems.
My feet are fine. Still "leathery", but I don't worry about them cracking as I used to or disabling my ability to walk. And the normal skin area seems to be expanding while the "leathery" areas seem to be receding. My hands seem 90% normal now. I've gone from Vaseline on my hands covered with plastic gloves and Vaseline on my feet covered with plastic produce grocery bags to soaking my feet in olive oil to, now, just Shea butter on my feet and hands with no plastic covering. Much improvement here. Much easier living!
The topical I use on my skin is cold pressed virgin Coconut Oil. By coating half my body in Coconut oil and half with prescription Steroid creme and testing the results I was able to prove Coconut oil is better. This was confirmed by the Derm Doc who prescribed the steroid creme. So it's not just my bias towards natural cures speaking here. I heartily recommend this to anyone reading this Blog who has not tried it. It has made my life much more pleasant dealing with the dry skin and itching. It is a natural and healthy treatment and I believe beneficial even were I not a "PRPer".
Other than the above I am taking some supplements (when I remember to). I am not as sold on supplements as I am on getting vitamins from food. Except for one category which makes total sense to me. Probiotic supplements which load your gut with "good" bacteria necessary for good health.
I am on a Vegan diet now. No animal products. No dairy. No eggs or cheese. I use to eat everything in moderation. Not now. Just fruits and vegetables, nuts, and beans. Also, I take protein powder supplement in a smoothy (avocado and banana). No coffee or alcohol. No cookies, or refined sugar.
People tell me they could not do this. They could not give up _______ (fill in the blank). I believe it isn't as hard as we talk ourselves into thinking it is. Sure going to holiday parties and seeing all that delicious, beautiful food and saying to yourself there is nothing on that table you can eat is a bit of a challenge but not as hard as we think and sure better than the alternative.
My energy has been low. My B-12 measured low so I am now taking a B-12 supplement. My energy seems to be coming back. Whether it's the supplement or my higher level of activity and resulting mental energy with renewed life interests I cannot say. For now let's just say its probably both.
So that's where I'm at. Not totally cured, but great progress 4 1/2 months after starting natural treatment with a disease that is said to typically last 3 years. And I sure don't want to tempt fate. But I do want to pass on to those with PRP what my tentative conclusions are so far. Hope this is helpful!
Thanks for reading! And special thanks for any comments (or questions) you wish to make!
Click here to go to latest post.
No comments:
Post a Comment